Impressions - March 2014 - 72

Screen Printing Technique

The Workhorse Flashback ﬂash
cure unit, seen here at an Imprinted Sportswear
Shows event, allows ﬂashing without using the
press's print station. It uses a bank of infrared
quartz ﬂash tubes that move along a track under
the screen frame, allowing the unit to be positioned at the same location as a screen.

possible with a round press conﬁguration.
Automatic textile presses are either
pneumatic (air driven) or servo electric
motor driven. With the air-driven automatic, a shop needs a large air compressor
and a chiller/dryer to keep the moisture
out of the press's internal components.
Moisture entering the air lines into valves
and ﬂow controls can be a problem without a chiller on the air line.
The No. 1 reason for automating the
T-shirt printing process is to produce
mountains of embellished T-shirts in a
very short amount of time. At the 2013
FESPA event in London, I saw M&R
Printing Co.'s Challenger III D automatic
screen printing press break the world record for T-shirts printed in one hour. Luis
72

Impressions | March 2014

Omar Viera, a press operator from New
Buffalo Shirt Co., Clarence, N.Y., used it
to print 2,139 shirts in one hour.
In addition to speed, an automatic
press can be dialed in to print the ﬁnest
detail and hold tight registration. Most automatic presses use a pin registration system that allows for ultra-fast setup times.
In speaking with M&R's Dave Zimmer at the Long Beach Imprinted Sportswear Shows (ISS) event this past January,
I asked him to comment on features that
screen printers should look for on newer
automatics that will be available this year.
"There are a lot of fast automatic machines out there, but it is equally important to get one that can be set up quickly,"
he said. "With the Tri-Loc pin registration

system, the machine can be set up in half
the time and keep the machine printing."
He added that another M&R press feature,
the "no shirt detector," can keep pallets
from being printed by mistake.
Also, with advancements of computerto-screen (CTS) imaging, it is possible to
image all of the screens in near-exact placement, making image registration on automatic presses much easier.
The days of printing a simple 12" x 12"
image on the front of a T-shirt are gone.
Now, it's important that the screen printing press have the ability to run many
different garment styles, even those with
larger design size requirements. Choosing an automatic with quick-change shirt
boards and a wide range of attachments is
a major consideration.
While I was checking out the automatic
presses at ISS Long Beach, Tyler Dummett
of Workhorse Products explained the features of the Workhorse Flashback ﬂash cure
unit, which allows ﬂashing without using
the press's print station. This unique ﬂash
cure unit uses a bank of infrared (IR) quartz
ﬂash tubes that move along a track under
the screen frame, allowing the unit to be
positioned at the same location as a screen.
The company also launched its new
Sabre series of automatic presses at ISS
Long Beach.
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Impressions - March 2014

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